A Penultimate Scene
by allegratree
Summary: Short story. I don't know. Read it and find out.


**_I haven't written fan fiction in a few years. To be truthful, I haven't written much of anything in a few years. I'm a full-time teacher now and it consumes my entire existence. My students are excited about this last book coming out and yesterday they had a discussion about what they thought would happen. Then, I was at the book store getting explo markers and I saw this sign announcing the release of the new book. It said," Severus Snape, friend or foe?" It sort of sparked my imagination and I came up with this idea. It is only one scene and I imagine it taking place immediately following some sort of battle between Harry and Voldemort. Harry has infiltrated the dark lord's base of operations using his teenage wits, good fortune, and invisibility cloak. He has done so with the purpose of finding the last hortecrux, the Hufflepuff goblet. Instead, he finds Voldemort with Draco Malfoy, his mother, and Severus Snape, whom he is in the process of torturing to death. Malfoy and his mother stand back in horror as their friend is being tortured. They believe him to be a loyal servant to the dark lord and have no idea what he is being punished for. During the course of these events, Voldemort senses Harry's presence and a battle ensues in which Harry and Voldemort shoot curses at each other, exchange standard battle banter, and Voldemort suffers a damaging blow and escapes to recover. Harry is unharmed and though a little amazed at the outcome of this battle, he attributes this to his ever fluctuating luck and proceeds to don the invisibility cloak in order to find what is left of Severus Snape. He discovers Malfoy and his mother moving Snape's lifeless form to an empty room where there is a convenient bed and decides to follow them and curse the snot out of Snape, with whom he is still very annoyed. (I'd like to declare this a read-at-you-own-risk story. Unlike many others, I have only read each of these books once and there may be some errors in spelling or fact. I regret that I am not as fluent in Potterese as say, the average 7th grader.)_**

Harry caught up with them as they had just found an empty room and were using their wands to light it and pulling a dusty tarpaulin from an even dustier mattress. Narcissa Malfoy gingerly delevitated Snape onto the mattress and began grabbing at his hands, feeling for a pulse. Draco plopped down beside him and began calling his name, and apparently trying to shake him back into consciousness.

"He won't wake up, mother!" Draco said. His mother motioned for him to be quiet, but Draco took no notice, "What was he being tortured for anyway? He hasn't done anything! It was Wormtail's fault that stupid snake got lost. Everyone knows that!"

"I don't know anymore about it than you do," replied his mother shortly. She was visibly concerned about Snape and trying to remain calm. She pulled a small bottle out from her robes and tried to get him to take some of it. It seemed to Harry that very little of it, if any, was swallowed.

"You're making a mess and he's still not waking," Draco whined impatiently.

"He may not awaken, Draco," his mother spat back angrily. She looked as though she regretted saying it immediately.

"What do you mean? He's breathing…and shaking! Of course we can heal him! He's had the crutiatus curse put on him before hasn't he?" Draco was trying to talk up his own confidence as much as argue with his mother.

"Not for nearly so long…." She responded uncertainly, "I don't think the dark lord was trying to teach him a lesson this time." She didn't continue. Draco was suddenly furious.  
"He called him a traitor! That's rubbish! Professor Snape is a Death Eater isn't he? I mean, he is on our side, right?" Narcissa Malfoy sighed.

"The question has never been if he was on OUR side, Draco. He's always been on our side." Draco slid down and slowly embraced Snape's arm in his.

"I don't understand…" he moaned, "Why would he do those things?" They were silent for a while and the only sound Harry could hear was Snape's labored breathing. Suddenly, Draco's mother spoke again.

"You were only two weeks old the first time you met him," she said.

"I know that," Draco interrupted.  
"Let me finish! Your father brought him home in not far from the same condition he is in now."

"Was he tortured then?"

"Indeed he was! I'd only been married to your father a couple years and I'd already had more wake-up calls then I'd care to count. I took one look at this greasy, scraggly-looking punk unconscious in my guest room and said, 'Lucius Malfoy, what manner of evil are you bringing in my house now?' But there he was, fussing with him as if he was his own brother. And finally your father got him conscious and he started shaking and crying and trying to move, though your father held him down. I said to your father, 'That man's a lunatic!' but your father just ignored me and held him down and said very calmly, 'Severus, I want you to meet someone.' Then he summoned Dobby and before I could shout stop he had you in this strange man's arms. Severus was suddenly still and quiet and looked as if he breathed to hard you might break into a thousand pieces. Your father said, 'This is my son, Draco. He is the most wonderful boy in the world, and if it weren't for you, I wouldn't have him anymore.' Then, Severus said something like, 'I thought you would hate me now, too.' Your father put his hands on both his shoulders and said, 'If you don't hold what I do against me, then I won't hold what you do against you.' So you see, my son, we are his family. I don't think there is anything he wouldn't do for us. Whatever side he is on, you can be sure it is yours."

Draco was weeping now, into Snape's arm.

"Please wake up," he begged, "You've got to tell me the truth! I don't know what to do."

The two fell silent once more, and Harry didn't know what to do. He was not at all prepared to believe that Snape was an innocent man, but it was clear that he had been nearly tortured to death for some reason. At any point, it was clear that his original purpose for following Snape seemed to be impractical. He couldn't see avenging his mentor properly on an unconscious man who was probably dying anyway. He was considering heading back to the Leaky Cauldron when he heard Narcissa Malfoy speak her son's name.

"No!" Draco shouted.

"He's left us, darling."

"No, he can't! I need him with me! I need him to be alright! He's going to be alright!"

"Yes, he is going to be alright…and safe…and at peace…But not in this world, Draco. Never, in this world. Please, let him go."

"No!" Draco shouted again, and for a moment, clung tighter to his teacher, but then surprisingly, loosened his grip. "Mother, what's this?" he asked. Harry thought he was probably trying to get his mother off the subject of Snape's death, but Draco was holding an object.

"Where did you get that?" his mother asked.

"He had it," Draco responded, "It was in his hand. What is it?" Draco held it out for his mother to see better and Harry drew in his breath so sharply he was immediately afraid that he'd been heard by the Malfoy's. Draco was holding what appeared to be a goblet. It appeared as though it had once been made of gold, though it was now beaten out-of-shape and blackened throughout as though it had been burned. On one side, was the remnants of an emblem, the Hufflepuff badger.

Draco's mother examined the vessel and said, "It was some sort of talisman, but its power is gone. It's been destroyed."

Draco stared at the battered cup and for a moment, fingering the broken badger emblem thoughtfully. Then, suddenly, he screamed in anger as he hurled it across the room. The useless object hit the wall with a hallow sound and then rolled away to some dark corner.

"He didn't tell me what to do!" Draco bellowed, "He never told me and now, how am I supposed to know?" Harry saw his pale face contorted in an expression of futile defiance and for a moment, Harry was reminded of the spoiled eleven-year-old he had once known.

Draco's mother placed her hand on his shoulder. "You'll have to decide for yourself, my son. Even without all the answers you want." Draco seemed to fight back tears as he stared blankly at Snape's body. His held his hands clenched together before him as if he were saying some desperate prayer. Harry had completely forgotten where he was and what he was doing as he waited to see what Draco would say.

Finally he spoke.

"I'm going to the Leaky Cauldron to see if Potter's little friends are still there. Somehow I'm going to make them tell me what is going on." He turned and looked at his mother. "This has to end tonight." She nodded and rose. "Come on then. Let's see if we can find a broomstick around for you to use. You'll get there faster."

Harry moved out of the doorway just in time to let them pass. He looked at the bed where Snape's body lay. He felt no emotion as he tried to remember why he had come here in the first place. And then he remembered the cup. Harry ran to the corner where Draco had flung it. He searched under cluttered, dusty furniture until he found it. It was Helga Hufflepuff's. He had no doubt of it. "_This is what he was tortured for_," he realized. He rose and gazed at the bed again. "_I called him a coward."_

Harry approached the bed slowly. He wondered for the thousandth time if the dead could see or hear the living.

"Can you hear me?" he whispered. Of course, he didn't expect an answer, but the silence was nonetheless unwelcome.

"I'm sorry for what I said," he said, a little louder now, and then added, "At least, some of what I said." That was true, Harry realized, and he didn't feel at all bad about saying so.

"I hope you aren't unhappy now," he continued, knowing that was also true, "If you are with my mother now, will you tell her that I hope she is proud of me?" Harry sat in silence for a moment as he tried to piece together everything that had happened. He sympathized with Draco as he noted that nothing that had anything to do with Severus Snape seemed to fit together properly. Finally, Harry looked up and addressed Snape's body once more.

"I have to go now. Draco was right. All of this ends tonight." And with that, he left the goblet on the bed beside Snape, and turned to make his way back to his friends.


End file.
